


I Am the Angry Child

by stellacadente



Series: What Came Before [2]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Backstory, Original Character(s), Other, The Spaces In Between, part of the Xhareen/Malavai Quinn story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 10:03:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8323672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellacadente/pseuds/stellacadente
Summary: Years before she becomes fully Sith and the Emperor's Wrath, Xhareen Nah-garesh learns a lesson about anger and the truth.





	

My parents sent me away when I was 8. It was my fault. This dumb boy, Raman, called my sister Naveen a bad name so I pushed him. Really hard, so he fell and got hurt. Everyone was mad at me and Naveen was crying and there was a lot of big people shouting. So I told everyone to shut up and I ran off to the woods.

I loved my woods. I miss them now. I told you I got sent away. That was a whole year ago. I live near the jungle now on Dromund Kaas. It's much easier to get lost, so when I run away to the jungle I have to be more careful. I don't run away that much anymore.

Everyone here is more like me. They have Force powers like me. I am stronger than most of them. But I learned pretty early that I can't just fight people when they make me mad or hurt someone I care about. I have a Responsibility, our Master says.

Master is Miralukan like me. We are different from most people. We don't have eyes so we see with our minds instead. My teachers put a visor on me when I came here, a little while later anyway. It will train your brain better, they said. Now you can see like the people with eyes, they said. And when I take it off, I can see with my mind. My sister and my mother and my father see with their minds. They don't have a visor. I don't know if Master has a visor because she wears a half-veil and maybe that hides a visor underneath.

My parents are coming to see me in a few days. My sister isn't coming. She is staying with our Nama (mother's mother) because Nama is ill, Mother said. I don't want Nama to die and I miss my sister. Naveen would never go with me to the woods, though. She didn't want to learn how to hunt, even though she loved our cat and he is the one who taught me how to hunt.

My sister is scared of a lot of things. Maybe she's too afraid of the spaceship and mother doesn't want to hear her crying for a whole week, which is how long it takes to get where I am now.

~~~

When I ran off to the woods after I hurt Raman I stayed away for a long time. Until the next morning. Mother was sobbing and Father could barely speak. I felt sad that Father broke his voice. Everyone loves to listen to his stories and now it was my fault he wouldn't be able to tell stories for a few days. I felt bad when I came home.

Nobody talked to me about it though. Mother said she was glad I was OK but she also said right out she was mad at me. I did a bad thing and then I ran off and didn't own up to it. Mother is very big on Owning Up To It. She's the oldest daughter of an oldest daughter and now I am, too, and I have Responsibilities even though I am small. I am bigger than Naveen, I said. For now, Mother replied. Naveen's definitely going to be taller than you!

That made me mad again, but I was glad to be home so I forgot about it until later that day. I'm the oldest so I'm supposed to be the biggest. Except now, I'm at a school with all kinds of people and some of them are small and some of them are big and they're all different ages. So I can't be mad about that anymore.

The teachers say I am really strong, so they make me fight the bigger boys. I hate the bigger boys. They're mean so I want to hit them all the time. But we can only fight in fighting class so I get really angry in between times and then Master says I need to control my anger. Anger is a tool. "Like a bow and arrow?" I asked the first day and some of the older boys laughed at me.

I know now they don't think bows are cool, only blasters. Even though we'll get practice swords next year and vibroswords the year after that, they still brag about how they fired a blaster once or their dad was a soldier and what was your dad? A music teacher? And they would laugh at me. And I have to be the one to control my anger or Master will get upset and shake her head at me.

~~~

My parents came in the spaceship that landed far away. Then they got in a smaller ship and landed near the school. We were all very happy and I was jumping a lot and said, "Look at what I can do!" And I did a big tumble all over the courtyard. My mother laughed and my father laughed and we were all happy.

Then I asked if Nama was still sick and my father said "What?" and Mother touched his arm and said, "You know, I told Xhareen that's why Naveen couldn't come with us." He said "Oh, yes, dear, but Nama is getting better. Naveen is taking good care of her."

I wanted to take care of her, too. Naveen always gets to do the good stuff. Except hunt. She never wanted to go hunting with me.

"Can Naveen come next year?" I asked my Mother since my Father didn't seem to know anything, but that was normal. We only got to see our old families once a year because we needed to make a new family. That's what our teachers said, all of them.

Mother hesitated before she answered and just said, "We'll see dear. We'll see."

Except I didn't see. Not with my new eyes and not with my mind. Mother looked a little afraid now.

"Mother did you send me away because I was bad?"

"What?" my Father asked again. "No, dear. We had arranged it months before you hit Naveen and ran away. We were upset that night but we sent you here because you need training you can't get at home."

"Wait," I said. "I never hit Naveen. I hit stupid Raman because he said something mean about Naveen."

And my parents looked at each other and my mother got Concerned on her face. "Xhareen, dear," she said. And I heard her say "Dear" and I got Concerned on my face. Because when Mother calls me dear it's always serious.

"Mami?" I didn't want to call her that. That's what babies call their mothers. My mother was Mother now but now I was afraid and I was about to get angry maybe and that made me more afraid.

"Listen, Xhareen. That night when you got really mad it was because Naveen and Raman were both calling you names and you pushed them both very hard and they got hurt."

"No, Mami, I would never hurt my sister!"

My Mother shook her head and looked at my Father. "You want to handle this?" she said to him.

My Father was the best storyteller in our city. Everybody knew that. Maybe he would make this just be one of his stories so I went and sat on his lap and waited for his story to start.

"Xhareen, baby, you used to get really angry because you didn't know how powerful you were. Your powers showed up early, even among our people, and that made some people afraid. Some of them said mean things to you sometimes."

I tried not to sob because I've been here a whole year and I'm bigger now. I'll get to use a practice sword next year.

"Did Navi say mean things to me?"

My father nodded his head.

"So I got mad at her?"

He nodded again.

"And I hurt her?"

"Baby, we know you didn't mean it. And Raman's parents knew he picked on you because we warned them before, so they were only a little upset."

What would my sister have said to me that was so mean I hit her hard? I thought about it for a minute but I couldn't come up with anything.

"What did she say to me?" Did she call me a smelly rancor, because that's what Raman said and that's why I hit him.

"I don't know. We weren't there, and your sister never talked about it." Did she call me a smelly rancor because I had been out hunting and she knew I said I would hit her if she ever told on me for going into the woods by myself?

"That's why she didn't come, isn't it? She's still mad at me because I hurt her." But she didn't tell them I was in the woods or I would have gotten into more trouble.

They said nothing. I knew I was right. I wasn't mad anymore though. People were afraid of me. That meant I had power over them. I just needed to learn how to have power over myself.

Then Master came in, all smiles under her half-veil and said, "Well, are you ready for your daughter to show you just how much she's learned?"

My parents both smiled again, but not as much as they had when they first landed and I tumbled for them in the courtyard.

But I am OK. I am stronger and my parents are going to be so proud when they see me fight now.

 


End file.
